Dialing In Coffee Guide: Fast and with Minimal Waste

“Dialing in” is one of the most important steps in making great coffee — and one of the trickiest for beginners. It’s the process of finding the right grind size and dose to get your espresso (or any brew method) tasting just right. But if you’ve ever gone through half a bag of beans just trying to get your grinder in the right zone, you know it can feel frustrating and wasteful.

This guide will walk you through smart, efficient dialing-in techniques that save both time and coffee. We’ll also show how features like Macap’s Coffee Targeting System (CTS) and Fast Opening System (FOS) make dialing in cleaner, faster and far less wasteful.

Strategies for Dialing In Quickly

Here are practical steps to minimize waste and speed up the process:

1. Start With a Reference Point

If you know your grinder well, use your last successful setting as a baseline. If you’re starting from scratch, aim finer for espresso and coarser for filter — then work from there.

2. Make Incremental Adjustments

Don’t jump wildly between settings. Move in small steps so you can track how changes affect extraction. Stepless or micrometric adjustments (like on Macap grinders) give you finer control.

3. Use Smaller Test Doses

Instead of pulling a full double shot each time, grind just enough for a small test extraction. This lets you judge flow and taste without wasting a full basket’s worth of coffee.

4. Watch Flow Before Tasting

For espresso, your first cue is the flow from the portafilter.

• Too fast? Grind finer.
• Too slow? Grind coarser. This visual check helps you zero in faster.

5. Keep Notes

Write down settings and results. Over time, you’ll build a “map” of where different coffees land on your grinder.

How Macap Reduces Waste When Dialing In

Dialing in can often be messy: coffee spills, grinds miss the basket, and fines cling to the counter. That’s wasted coffee – and wasted money.

Macap’s Coffee Targeting System (CTS) solves this problem by:

• Delivering grounds exactly where they’re needed – straight to the center of the basket.
• Reducing mess and clumping – so less coffee is lost on the counter.
• Improving consistency – meaning fewer “test shots” are wasted before you find the sweet spot.

Macap’s Fast Opening System (FOS) lets you switch instantly from micro to macro adjustments, making it easy to apply swift, large grind changes without losing precision.

In practice, that means dialing in is not only faster, but also significantly cleaner and more efficient compared to grinders without these kinds of systems.

Troubleshooting: What to Look For

When dialing in, extraction taste is the ultimate guide. Here’s a quick cheat sheet:

Under-extracted coffee

• Sour, sharp, thin.
• Usually from grinding too coarse or too short a brew time.

Over-extracted coffee

• Bitter, dry, hollow.
• Usually from grinding too fine or letting the brew run too long.

Adjust in small steps until you land in the balanced zone: sweet, round, and expressive.